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Hitwise Intelligence - Bill Tancer - North America

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New Yorker Cartoon - Search and Brand Association

July 16, 2008

Here's our most recent post on ABCNews regarding the New Yorkers recent cover.

New Yorker - Satirizing or Perpetuating Obama's Muslim Association?

The uproar over this week's New Yorker cover depicting Barack and Michelle Obama in Muslim and terrorist garb respectively, has resulted in condemnation from both sides of the aisle. The very few that defend the satirical nature of the magazine's cover this week say that the cartoon sheds light on the perception that the Obamas are Muslim extremists.

Shortly after Insight Magazine broke the Madrassa story in January of last year, reporting that Obama had attended a Muslim Extremist school as a child (which was later debunked), there was a marked increase in the association between the Muslim religion and searches on Barack Obama's name. Since then, from the perspective of U.S. Internet searches, that association has waned significantly. If we look at the top ten searches containing "Barack Obama" for the four weeks ending July 5, 2008, only one term among the top ten Obama searches directly addresses the association, with one term referencing his middle name "Hussein" and one query seeking information on his religion.

Top Ten Searches Containing "Barack Obama" Four Weeks Ending July 5, 2008

1. Barack Obama
2. how old is Barack Obama
3. Barack Obama biography
4. Barack Obama young
5. Barack Obama website
6. Barack Hussein Obama
7. Barack Obama Muslim
8. Barack Obama t-shirts
9. Barack Obama's religion
10. Barack Obama blog

We'll check back with Obama search terms next week (our search data updates weekly) which I expect will show that the New Yorker rather than satarize the issue will have succeeded in giving the story new life.

Posted by Bill Tancer at 01:47 PM | (0) | (0)